N Chandrasekaran’s decision not to seek another term as chairman of Tata Sons is being presented as a succession question. It is more consequential than that. It marks the first major test of who controls the group after Ratan Tata, and what the conglomerate should become without the man who held its competing interests together. Chandrasekaran has not been abruptly removed.

He will complete his present term ~ until February 2027. But his explanation is revealing: a proposal to extend his tenure failed to secure unanimous board support in February and remained unresolved six months later. For the chairman of a group built as much on consensus as on corporate hierarchy, that deadlock was itself the message. The disagreement matters because Tata Sons is not an ordinary holding company. Tata trusts control about two-thirds of it, while Tata Sons in turn exercises decisive influence over the sprawling commercial empire.

Ratan Tata could reconcile the interests of trustees, professional managers and shareholders because his personal authority was greater than the institutional tensions between them. His death removed that balancing force. Noel Tata, who became chairman of Tata Trusts after his........

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